The Life Of A Mineral Lake Logger
Terminology of sawmill and logging pond
Boards: A piece of sawed lumber of specified thickness and a length greatly exceeding its width.
Edger Machine: A lumber edger is a device with saws used to straighten and smooth rough lumber or bowed stock by making a cut along the sides of the boards. The result of this process is dimensional lumber.
Kicker: Hydraulic arms that moved logs from the conveyor trough to the saw feed.
Lumber Yards: A yard where a stock of lumber is piled today and kept for sale.
Millsite: A portion of the public lands acquired under federal law to be used for the erection of a mill or reduction plant in connection with a patent for mineral lands or rights, usually a portion of a timber lean.
Disclaimer: (See below). This is a technical term used by the logging industry and is no way meant as a racial, or discriminatory term. (See below).
Niggers: A strong iron-bound timber with sharp teeth or spikes protruding from its front face, forming part of the machinery of a sawmill, and used in canting logs, etc.
Terminology of logging terms
Arch: A framework through which a winchline from a skidder passes over and is used to suspend the leading ends of logs being dragged (skidded).
Bullrope Men: Senders or bull rope men, sent the logs up skids to the top loaders.
Butt log: The first and biggest log from a tree.
Cat: : Often short for Caterpillar Tractor, or any other brand of bulldozer-type tractor. May refer to a skidding tractor or an earthmoving bulldozer.
Choked/Choker: A short (usually less than 20 feet) noose of wire rope for hauling logs.
Crosscut: A crosscut saw (thwart saw) is any saw designed for cutting wood perpendicular to (across) the wood grain. Crosscut saws may be small or large, with small teeth close together for fine work like woodworking or large for coarse work like log bucking, and can be a hand tool or power tool.
Fall: Felled timber
Faller: A logger who fells timber, usually restricted to people doing hand felling, not to operators of tree harvesters. AKA “Chopper,” “Feller.”
Four-foot Stationary Chainsaw : a large saw with a motor and teeth-like parts fitted onto a continuous chain, used especially for cutting logs into lengths (which remains stationary).
Gang: A team consisting of two men to manually fall a tree.
Haulback Line: A wire rope used to pull the mainline with carriage or butt rigging with chokers back to the timber for the next turn.
Jammer Operator: Operates the jammer, a lightweight, ground lead yarder using tongs and usually mounted on a truck with a spar and boom. Often relatively inexpensive and equipped with a single drum. It may be used for both yarding and loading.
Limb: To cut branches off a tree or log.
Logging truck: A special 18-wheeled truck designed to haul logs from the woods to the mill.
Marker Man: Cut logs into standard lengths.
Scale: To measure the volume of logs, expressed in MBF (a thousand board feet).
Skidder: A self-propelled vehicle used to transport logs, generally by dragging them with a grapple or chokers and can be wheeled or tracked.
Swamper: A swamper in occupational slang is an assistant worker, helper, maintenance person, or someone who performs odd jobs.
Top: To cut off the top of a tree down to a specific diameter for use as a spar (Somewhat rare these days, as mobile, portable spars and towers are the rule.
